The National Park, found north of Goldenrod City and between Routes 35 and 36, hosts a Bug Catching Contest on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. There is no entry fee required for participation in the Contest. You may sign up for participation at either entrance to the Park.

Contest Rules

Once you enter the Contest, you will be provided with 20 Park Balls, weaker versions of Pokeballs not unlike Safari Balls. You are also required to pick a single Pokemon out of your party to participate. Try to pick a Pokemon that is skilled at capturing other Pokemon. One which knows status-inducing moves such as Thunder Wave and Spore would be a good choice. The rest of the Pokemon in your party and all your items will be held by the Contest Officials until the Contest is over.

During the Contest, you are free to capture any Pokemon you encounter. However, you can only keep one Pokemon for judging. Nonetheless, any Pokemon you catch will be recorded in your Pokedex, so this is a good opportunity to fill up your Pokedex entries.

The Contest ends once you use up all your Pokeballs or when you leave the way you came. The judging will then occur. The sole factors that determine the score in the contest are the rarity of the Pokemon and its level. Good bets are high-level Pinsirs, Scythers, Butterfrees and Beedrills.

Once judging is complete, you will obtain a prize based on your finishing position. The prizes are, namely:

The Pokemon available in the National Park become very different from that which is available in the National Park on normal days. Here is a list of the Pokemon available in the National Park during a Bug Catching Contest:

Save for a select few, none of the Pokemon available during the Contest are seen in the National Park outside of the Contest. Here is a list of the Pokemon in each version that are exclusive to the Contest:

Hence, as mentioned above, the Bug Catching Contest is a good opportunity to fill up your Pokedex entries.

Actually, the scoring part is partially right - rarity and level are useful. The scoring is actually determined by the sum of the pokemon's stats (not including hit points) multiplied by a factor which is determined by the amount of health remaining when captured. The range of the multiplier, I've found, has been from around 1.8 when the pokemon is about to faint, to roughly 3.0 when it's at full health. (There may be other factors in determining the specifics of the factor, such as length of time taken to capture and/or number of pokeballs used, but health remaining is the most significant.) Rarity and level are useful in estimating how high the stats will add up to be (the rarer bug pokemon on the field usually have better stats.) But the health seems to be the most significant factor. I've caught level 15 Pinsirs and not even placed in the top 3. But I've won 1st place with a level 13 Venonat. The Pinsirs I'd whittled down to 7 HP or so. The Venonat was at full health.

Of course, I'm assuming the scoring hasn't changed with HG/SS - this mathematical determination was discovered while playing Pokemon SoulSilver (JPN).

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